While I have breath.....

I mean no disrespect to a necessary profession, but I hate going to the dentist. I have sensitive spots in my teeth that the dentist always seems to want to find, and dig around in with metal tools. You all know that electric shock that makes your nostril hairs singe and your eyebrows curl. If you don't, count yourself among the lucky few.

So I dutifully go twice a year but I look forward to it like I would walking on hot coals to reach a bowl of lima beans mixed with cow brains. Just yuck and double yuck.

Yesterday was my biannual visit to the masked purveyor of torture and pain in the name of health. (For all you children reading my blog, remember that I use exaggeration to make my points. Every one of you should go to the dentist faithfully, floss daily, and change your toothbrush every 3 months. Do not be dissuaded by my recounting of my own neuroses with dentists).

The dental hygienist is always impossibly cheery as she lays out the sharp, menacing tools. Before I even sit down, I remind her to swab my gums with the numbing gel. As it takes effect, my whole throat goes numb as well, and of course, now I am not only gripping the seat edge in anticipation of the inevitable shock of pain they always seem to inflict, but I am quite sure I will die of tracheal paralysis. And then of course, she asks  a question. Not just a yes or no question I can mutely nod or shake an answer to. A question that requires a dissertation to answer appropriately. But there I sit, mouth agape, tongue, throat and lips numb, with her fingers in my mouth and some hideous tool scraping away.

As she settled the apron that keeps the xrays from etching holes in my midsection, she told me, "What a beautiful day!" glancing at the sparkling sun outside the windows of the torture chamber.
"It is," I agreed, "It almost makes me feel like I am on vacation in this weather."
"Some of my clients tell me their favorite day of the year is a visit to the dentist," she went on.
My face must have conveyed the polite but obvious unspoken retort, "You are a big fat liar."
"Yep," she said, "They are usually young mothers with 3 kids under age 5. They say the trip to the dentist is the only time they have an hour of uninterupted peace and quiet."

I pondered that thought for the rest of the visit, which only had one brief moment of tolerable pain. I guess, like in all things, it is a matter of perspective. To a starving child, moldy bread is a blessing. The Bible tells us, in one of my favorite verses, "A live dog is better than a dead lion." (Ecclesiastes 9:4)  I suppose the simplest way to think of it is count your blessings.  I had no cavities, I left with nice clean teeth, and a new yellow toothbrush with bristles that tell me when it is time to get a new brush. The sun was still shining, and my dear daughter greeted me with a smile, hard at work on finishing her school work when I returned.

While I have breath, I should really be using it to praise God for how fortunate I am to have breath to praise Him.... and sweet smelling breath, courtesy of the dentist I so fear.

Ecclesiastes 9: 4-5
⁴ Anyone who is among the living has hope -even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!  ⁵ For the living know that they will die,
       but the dead know nothing;
       they have no further reward,
       and even the memory of them is forgotten.

1 Peter 1: 3-4
 ³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you,